Universal standards

I can only speak for the state of Maryland when I say that the MPTC (Maryland police training commission) regulates the training of all sworn officers in the state. What that means is that every officer in our state has had the same requisite training as deemed necessary by MPTC. The MPTC dictates what must be taught and how many hours each academy must have spent on that subject matter.

I broached a topic on linkedin the other day about the single voice in the industry and the subject of universal standards came up again. There is a prevailing issue amongst this industry that prohibits us from having legitimacy in some respects. Corporate EP has been survived long before high threat/PSD became popular yet there is a Department of State standard that has to be met before you can work in those non permissive areas under a legitimate contract.

My fear is that if we don’t bind together in some fashion, other than costly networking get togethers that spring up every semester, we are going to lose the ripe opportunity to control how we want this to be done. If we let the states do it, there wont ever be a standard. Look at it now, some states don’t even recognize EP and yet in others you have to read the law and figure out where protection falls outside of uniformed security.

I truly believe that this is not a major undertaking like, the gun laws, but if we don’t step up we’ll end up with something that won’t resemble what we have.